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jhssn Feb 2015
There was a girl.
A girl I once  knew
who never felt cold.
Never felt cold when
taking a shower in
freezing water.
Never felt cold
when she would stand
at the bus stop in 6
degree weather with barely
anything on. Never felt
the slightest bit of cold
even when she layed down
in the snow for 5 hours.
In fact, she loved the cold.
She embraced it; she loved how
cold the winter was in
Michigan. She loved feeling
the icy wind hit her face and
body when she wasn't wearing
much. She loved the
way it made her hands and face feel
anesthetic . It made her feel alive, refreshed
even, and
that’s all she ever craved for.
But she still never
felt how cold it actually was.
But why?
Why did she love
it that much?
Why couldn't she ever
feel frigid like everyone else?
Why love something,
something  you cant really feel?
Because even though she couldn't
feel how shivery cold
it was on the outside,
maybe that’s how her heart
was. Maybe that’s how
she felt on the inside.
**Numbing cold.
Madzq Aug 2014
Lovesick and you've got the cure.
Got all these symptoms. You know what for.
Don't be afraid of this contagious disease,
Just take my requisition form.

I've made room for you in my atria and ventricle.
You're the capillary to my arteriole and venule.
You're the amniotic fluid to the child in my heart.
I find you even in the interstitial parts.

Treatment like uours is like a centrifugAl force.
So be the **** stasis my heart is longing for.
Some homeostasis is what we need.
We will make compromises to succeed.

Lay me supine and you in prone.
Sensory neurons fire
Exocrine glands make to pressure
Spark endocrine glands to hear you moan.

Without your heart I'd be anemic.
Withiutbyour arms I'd be half a paraplegic.
Your kisses give me air, without them I'm cyatonic.
You're the fibrin in my veins, to my pain an anesthetic.

I'm ready for some long-term care and affection.
Got a chronic condition that needs your attention.
I k now I'm concluded, parts of me sclerosed.
Don't wait post mortem to know that you're the most.
I wrote this for my partner as a way to help me memories my medical terminology.
Chris Apr 2010
Such exquisite anesthetic the 
notes that decree the seconds
Shal­l never more be known, 
their remembrence like a flickering,
gent­le soothing, yearning that 
matches pleasure for sorrow
in such p­atient terms that each 
moment stands, breathes and 
steps slowly­ without a glance
t'ward another time when
unknown tears and smil­es
shall crown more glimpses
of the relentless serenade
This one's about a moment when I felt very happy but the music on the radio, which was amazingly beautiful, made me feel sad that I couldn't pause time.
The music was Eclogue Op.10. by Finzi.
Leah Rae Sep 2012
I Am The New Age Villain. No Masked Maccasurer, I Carry My Blades On The Inside.

More Terrifying Than Any Clown, Or Ghost Faced Monster With A Butcher Knife. I Am The Teenage Girl With Daddy Issues.

I Will Swallow Your Sons Whole. I Will Pull Them Under The Covers Until All They Can See Is Black And Blue. I Will Carve My Name Above Their Still Beating Heart, And Turn Them Ugly. I Am Their First And Last Love, Wrapped Up In Old Christmas Bows That My Mother Could Never Bring Herself To Get Rid Of.

With A Tongue Piercing And A Bad Tattoo Of A Rose On My Ankle, I've Got Problems With My Identity, Seems To Me I've Lost It On The Assembly Line Of  You What You're Supposed To See On  MTV , I've  Never Been Given Anything To Really Stand For.

So This Means I Fall In Love Easily.

I Fall Into Bed Easily, Between Layers Of Needing To Be Needed, And A Bottomless Appetite For Hands Across My Flesh. Bruises Make It That More Much Worth The While, Because Hours Later The Marks Will Still Be There To Remind Me Of Just How Badly You Never Wanted To Let Me Go.

He Places His Palm To My Chest, Mine To His, Says "Baby We're Making Love." But How Do You Make Love When You Hate Yourself?

I Have Learned The Hard Way That Your Mother Doesn't Want You To Bring Girls Like Me To Christmas Dinners. I've Felt My Stomach Curl Up Around My Insides, Chewing Me Apart, From The Inside Out, I Am Empty.

So I Beg Them To Fill Me.
Pour Promise Between My Sheets, And Breathe Into Me. I Am Broken.

I Know You're All Afraid Of Me, And Thats Why You Hate Me. I've Seen The Sneer Across Your Lips, Spark Starving And Growling. You Want To See Me Fail. You Probably Don't Know How Often I Cry Myself To Sleep At Night. I Was Bred, Not Built, I Am Human Too. But So Much Less Real Than You, Because This Hollowness Is Like A New Anesthetic.

But Like Every Good Comic, The Villain Was Not Always The Villain. Some Sick And Twisted Past Has Ripped Him Apart At The Seams, Left Him Begging Desperate, Lonely And Fragile, Chasing Down The Kind Of Sweet Revenge That Rots Your Teeth.

I Wasn't Always This Way. I Was Delivered Into The Mouth Of Temptation, And **** Did The Bite Hurt.

Like Any Good Story, It Had A Begging Middle, And End, But Not Necessarily In That Order, Because My Beginning Was My Mothers End, And My Father's Story Seemed To Happen Without My Existence. Without My Permission

Because He Walked Out. Like Backlit Silhouette Of Shadows Against My Bedroom Walls, He Was Always Leaving In My Dreams.

He Met A Girl With A College Degree, Called Her 'Babydoll' And 'Lover', And She Gave Him The Gift Of Three Sons, Who Search For The Thread Of Meaning In Their Father's Speech When He Kisses The Tops Of Their Heads At Night.

He Made This Way. He Tore Our The Seems Of My Storybook And Left Me Screaming In My Sleep. This Lost And Angry Abandonment Couldn't Rest Any Longer, I Now How Streets To Chase Away And Hours To Destroy, And This Would Be The Time For Our Rib cages to Meet, In Hot Heat, And Spark Into Something Bigger Than Me,
So Yes, Call Me Your Villain.

Because Like A Villain, I Am Chasing A Revenge Deep Into Myself, Down Highways Called Veins, Where I Once Wrote The  Word 'Happiness' In Blue Ink For An Older Me To Find Someday. I Am Waiting For A Redemption To Thread Its Fingers Into My Hair, And Tell Me I'm Literally Worth Fighting For. I Am Exhausted, Because I've Got Blooded Knuckles, And Broken Battle Hymns.

The Only Hero I'm Fighting Is Myself.
Will Rogers III May 2014
lack of feeling is what I am feeling
am I Luke Skywalker warm?
the beast inside desperately wants to cause chaos
To make a scene; a cry for help from deep within.

It's easy to find meaning in almost anything:
A leaf in the wind, a letter I need to send
my finger twitching, my bike needs fixing,
Crumpled foil on a plate, the class I need to take

My legs get tense
My hands get stressed.
My eyebrows are bent
My life is blessed?

I need local anesthetic
To numb my numbness.
Perhaps dialogue will encourage my indecision.
Perhaps Max won't burn after all.
[composed on February 16, 17 2014]
Inspiration from German short story "Local Anesthetic" by Gunter Grass
igriegazeta Aug 2011
Ability looked at the cards
For mercy with a silver eye.

Survival was not self-immolation.

No matter. No spirit.
No silence. No echo.
No piety. No touch,


An anesthetic to minimize shame
Anesthetic for temptation.
Anesthetic for the terror of wild abandon.

Ability bled delicately, red to silver the moon's translation as cold as ever.

His dignity long misunderstood, vague until now. She his witness and detached accomplice.

Ability swallowed his bile and licked his lips as it stung his insides, appropriating the mannerism of the stone prince, vigilant of the ever presence. Stiff upper lip, a  gaze cold. Dead.
Ability was not born an orphan. He adapted this persona in memory of They who molested his sincerity and are still walking free among the living, feeding from the corals of truth. Innocence and good will as innate a pleasure principle as the ignorance that abounds would be unlearned in a meticulous exercise of freedom, keen conversation and select divulgation of self. No more would a vampire ravage his inner whole unless absolute expulsion was the contract. Giving himself to vice completely, void of distraction and sacrifice. No longer able to cope with his solitary confinement he tiij ti sealing every possible entry, every capillary that might one day offend. Today, dry of want, need, desire, in a perverted disillusion, content in the agony of unlearning helplessness the noble intention of needing nothing from anyone the prudence of minimal human contact the virtue of knowing god from man and the insistence of the free to differentiate the two.

Superiority was a given for Ability as innate as the goodwill, innocence, and ignorance that preceded his testimony to the moon. As indifferent to everyone else as mankind's general ignorance of god. As insignificant as god's indifference of man. As inconsequential as Ability and his devotion to man. A man. A priest.

Ability tended every nuisance. Choice. Taste. Expectation. Desire. He did not quite digest the simplicity of an ideal that was now the enemy- the ideal of taking humanity seriously. Ability, in wonderful lysergic incantation feared these suspicions to be true.  A belief no longer internalized by Ability the Free who now came to understand this bastion of truth: the longest repressed offense mechanism: mankind is alone and has only itself to blame.

Ability's innocent sincerity was ignored, forsaken by he who was dead inside. Ability would bury him as a god only to watch him resuscitate as a mortal. Only then would ability look him- the medic, priest, doctor- in the eye. After disavowing his first and second testament. Ability nailed to his forehead the very first commandment: that of self-preservation.

Ability was divorcing doctrine from totality. Romance from self. Wearing his best clothes, washing his face and feet for the volition to go it alone until death. Roaming strangely the terrain and rivers of Planet Earth, a planet who like himself was almost conquered by Cruel Mankind, Ability realized he had come before the Priest. Ability no longer imitated the passion of the Christ. He laid down his cross. He began his own manifest. For salvation, redemption, and freedom. No longer at the worship of his own tomb, he swallowed his own seed and took his life.
Tori Edwards Jun 2014
I will sit here
forever, me
Just wondering why
the blood in
cracked veins
Turns to ink droplets
and became words
on countless pages

This isn't pain
That was not love
Either way
we are F R E E
as animals

Is this an Ancient
Marmalade Sky
and Champagne Rivers
Where we will
float away to
something louder
Then a prayer

I am sewn back together
with no anesthetic
But my insides tucked up
Gloss and clouds
Our memories are worth
every penny

With colours and textures
we are floating away
Under Marmalade Skies
and
Champagne Rivers
WS Warner Feb 2012
Underneath the anger, there are tears. Beneath the fury, there is hurt, a river
of affliction - the day that possibility evaporated. I knew, the moment
it was gone. Telos obscured, like a mist, had left me.

Frost in February, morning at the local coffee house, perseverating, sedate
in privatized, cogitations - certainty dissolves into irony, the transient
collective with predictable cadence and singular objective. Borrowed
energies - preferred anesthetic in defiance of the placid, quotidian horror.

Angst wrapped in skin, clothed in remorse, like a muslin coat unable
to keep me warm, the palette of truculence, dislocated savant,
with guarded aversion - faces enucleating in tacit harmony, the muted tragedy
of the forgotten.

Yoked, the metaphorical satchel, freighted with the sentient debris, sifting
the fuckage, memoirs of failure, privation of venture and honor, objectified as
mere portent. [Existence] - the daily riot, becomes the necessary crucible.

Dissonance and detachment resonate the cultural banality, [being] displaced
by icon; [branding], ideas about ideas, life several times removed,
emblem over essence.

Existential renegade, exploiting the counter intuitive, the paradigmatic prodigal,
favor squandered, in the absonant passage, bearing fruit of the undone.

Bones of contention lament, interminably, like a false friend, present in absence,
perceived in the lack, subtraction, slip-stream - the disheveled
palaver of the broken.

Acutely self referential, misery enfleshed, its own reward, a post-war
discontent inhabiting sorrow, compressed and narrow, begetting
apathy in springtime.

Commodity of youth, the currency of beauty -permuted, commerce of the
ethereal and diaphanous. Human caprice, post-modern fog,
the flattened self,
the enemy of us is us, drowning in the decorum of narcissism.
the fattened calf,
immolating on the sword of autonomy.

Recycled grief, a recursive loop of gestating thoughts, marinating fluidly
within the interpretive grid. Confessional cyber community - exposed wounds
and concrete suffering, abstracted from virtual solidarity, refracted through a
reductive sentimentality, maybe they will ‘like’ it.

Iconoclast in exile, inhaling the incense of barrenness , surrounded by synoptic
drivel in understated - present tenses - alight in the now, axial axioms of the privileged,
who genuflect to the god of unfettered freedom.

Peripatetic intervals of isolation, self-imposed, hidden in a sanctuary of derision,
colliding with immutable otherness , the waters of chaos, calm.
The proleptic display, announcing eschatology. An ancient text written on the interior
expressed in myth and narrative the courier. The carnal and cerebral
arise, rightly flourishing.

Sense thresholds stirring, surprise and turbulence, reverberations of altered
domains merging - the temporal and ubiquity, the indissolubly resplendent
inversion - the invisible made visible. Opaque intrigues subsumed into the
balm of reconciliation - the first shall be last…

©2012 W.S. Warner
JJ Hutton Feb 2013
the priest, whose tomato face looked like it might explode under collar tension,
gave the valedictory at the friday night execution
the yellow-toothed, combover'd serial killer buckled in electric chair
kept staring at the door, expecting an ally to crawl in late but not too late
the mother of one of the victims rattled on about
how she didn't care that the killer had an allergy to the anesthetic used
in lethal injection      he's going to die either way     what's it matter?
buzz of fly    crack of rolled program against empty folding chair
(yes, there were programs, and whoever laid them out knew their typography)
buzz of fly raised upward, toward the black, magma-cooled ceiling
audience chin up, pupils circled fly as the priest droned on
about everlasting life like a Paul Simon song from his youth
like a catcher's mitt from his youth like a youth from his youth
the boyfriend of one of the mothers of one of the victims
said he was hungry    pancakes sound good, don't they?
I love it when syrup gets on the bacon, you know? love that.
a pudgy guard with bleary eyes and 12 a.m. shadow
rolled his index finger   lowered his brow, telling the
priest to wrap it up   so the priest wrapped it up
by reading the names of the victims
Tara Barnes, 17, Rachel Lythe, 10, Julie McPherson, 13,
Serenity Strongman, 15, and Mary Beth Williamson, 13
the priest said something about judgement as
the boyfriend of the mother of one of the victims
took another swat at the fly                       missed
any last words? the priest asked
where's James? the killer asked, he was supposed to be here
did you guys give him the right time?
the guard nodded to a lab coat by a black box
then a hiss then a hum then an inhale
the first jolt of alternating current for

instantaneous brain death

hard to tell if they succeeded in that
for the second jolt came only a moment
later    this shock's aim to fatally damage
the internal organs, overstimulate the heart
and the killer's face looked like a horse's leg
then an exhale then a hum then a hiss
and the killer's face looked like the crinkled
skinmemory of a cicada
it was late   most of the best restaurants already closed
but we could go to that diner off 63rd, the boyfriend
of the mother
of one of the victims, said
Sabrina Aug 2012
Hearts sinking
This pain no longer a threat,
Only certain tragedy.
They say, "Risk it all."
To have your heart torn apart.
Surgery. No Anesthetic.
Mission:
Find the bleeding parts.
Abnormal.
Ice.
No warmth.
You find heat.
Give away pieces.
Turn to stone.
Then repeat.
K D Kilker Sep 2022
I want to feel the world
with cuts on my fingers
and kisses on my wrist.

I want to know who I
am when the numbness fades.
Write lyrics like spreadsheets with number crunching
Calculate the isotopes
numerical accuracy in the vein of vain attempts to overcome
the show off tendencies of artist who exhibit flow to illicit
concern about existence beyond what they can see of pedagogical poetry
more concerned with numbers and patterns
who gives a **** what the stress is on the vowel in the third stanza  
lyrically despondent personal correspondents for a publication that says
more about what you know than what you feel
and who you are
computer says no, statistically impossible, synaptic haiku
five seven five
musical ronin
go go gadget of talent
extend-o-pole and flying nimbus as you train like son-goku
hyperbolic chamber where time is an illusion only to collapse
true Saiyans are warriors from the womb until death and after
over nine thousand and the scanner short circuits
write on the clouds with light so hot that it burns on thought
not contact
no constants, just variables, electron microscopes to try and hear the angels sing.
Large Hadrons small dreams, no love, just roman numerals
XIV, ***, Blood transfusions in the realm of “O Positive” and you're just a pessimist, negative Nancy at the end of evolution
Flesh and bone as a tent in your double helix of a genome,
flesh like clay in the hands of some master
but you know no master
no nations, under no gods but Darwin
all 23 chromosome pairs making 46 parts of your brain
screaming neurons fire
WRITE
WHAT
YOU
ARE
If you should so choose as to end not with a bang but a whimper
then your memory is forfeit
contribute in some meaningful semblance of sarcasm and sinsethesia with anesthetic medications of pop remedies and voided memories
of sinthesisia
Smell the colours and taste the sounds of pen on paper
when you never own a pen or a pad
just a bright white rectangle you stare at for hours on end
No thoughts just Digg and Reddit
your only contributions a thumbs up or a red thumbs down
like buttons
but no dislike, because if you've got nothing nice to say
then say nothing
unless you're outrage and full of spite
and morose
at the state of human nature
beauty and song thrown out in an effort to leave nobody behind
and so we have a generation coming in
at the age of 5, who are told new math
new science
wrote memorization of equations
no thought process, no argument about relation
theory of relativity, the genious mind just numbers and letters on a page with squiggles and lines that don't have to mean anything more than they mean on the book
we have a generation with no lust, no hope
Do they dream in black and white?
do they dream at all?
is the consequence of IQ tests and graded paper intelligence
the thirst for knowledge and creativity?
WE HAVE TO SCREAM
at the injustice
Burn it to the bricks and ashes
we hurl through the windows
in the streets and in the parks
car radios and clock towers sold
for cheap homemade *****
dance around the fire like the wild things are
LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN
but then we're still hollow
no happy medium, just excess
in the pursuit of Dionysus, trepination,
demon possession is illegal in the eyes of the police and federal law
spread your legs and lean against the car
as they frisk you and plant the seed
of doubt
in the cuffs of your jeans
You have the right to remain silent
but I hope you don't
refuse
question
resist
work in progress.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2018
.that's what the term: Slavic, implies... slave?! what?! not in my language, etymologically speaking... słowo, słowianin, word, Slav, respectively... i don't know where these quasi-Germanic peoples of the anglophone world get their ideas from, esp. from a, "missing" epsilon. wankers.

- and the main difference between a Slavic
language and a quasi-Germanic language
akin to English or French?
                   clarity of syllables,
   and a pivot on pseudo-Roman graphemes,
albeit not concentrated (for aesthetic
purposes) on crafting graphemes out
of vowels... more or less consonants...
English has this concept already...
   cheap as chips...
             prime **** of the shire
    (CH                                SH)
but the main difference is...
                            we don't use the surd
conundrum...
                e.g.?
                         ­        g'bur
                   syllable count: 2
                                  you say the first letter,
have a nanosecond pause and the second
syllable enters:  g'boor...
                   which is a word, roughly defined
as: someone who's boorish,
               a noun, not an adjective...
but in english?
                                   (g)nostic....
    wait...     diagnosis...
                            so like an electron clouds
surrounding a nucleus...
   (electrons do not exist in orbits,
clouds, quantum clouds to be precise,
they enter the antimatter dimension,
pop up and disappear in randomized
places, within a definite spatial complex
that constitutes what is known as
an atom)...
              too many ******* particulars
in the anglophone language...
         which is probably why i love it so
much...
        and because the englischzunge
has so many particular instances of
"correct" speech... and no diacritical
methodology... well...
                     hmm... a ******* rainbow of accents!
i love the Indian: bud bud... bud bud...
hearing it feels like riding a *******
camel over uneven ground... bud bud...
note - budwasserscheisse -
who, in their right state of mind -
ferments rice, and adds it to the fermentation
of barley?!
   o.k., the alternative... budscheissewasser...
take your pick...
    it appears that my original ambition
was to speak the native language better
than the natives...
   have i succeeded?
                  perhaps...
               god almighty and all that is
glorious about hell's pandemonium...
   i miss the trill of the R...
      either tongue numbing in English...
or a ******* hark in French...
but as i was sometime ago informed...
the French used to trill the R...
  they: rrrrrrroled the rattle and found
a snake...
                      trill? when you pass a breath
that slaps the tongue against your
hard palate...
                     like a rattlesnake...
   i'm so happy that it still exists in certain
languages...
        it's a hark in French,
             and a tongue numbing heimlich
maneuver
in English...
like the tongue was injected with an
anesthetic borrowed from dentistry,
                or some other random *******.
- and yes, i couldn't learn French,
because i was already investing my efforts
and observational tactics in spotting
the oddities in English...
            surd-letters, a slack in syllable distinction...
you name it...
                            g'boor contra
                  (g)nostic....
                          ­    invited to a session
of psychiatric diagnostics...
             oh i speak the orthodox better than
the natives...
  the natives have to resort to slang...
or as i like to call their version "of events":
the **** of shlang.

p.s. but this is going to be an example
of where English, and French meat...
****, sorry... meet...

   a surname to exemplify:
   Trudeau...
           i'm not going to call the French
żabie udki (frog-thigh eaters),
i just call them the suffix eaters...
point blank... watch how this GH
   grapheme pops up, but is "invisible"
in the said, French surname...
   although...
                           see it?
   Trudeau...             now you don't!
******* that i am surrounding
spewing linguistic *******...
   even i'm starting to think:
                    neat observation,
well tailored for the given times of...
how do you censor an investigation
into grammar and phonetics?

p.p.s.
    and well know where the English
borrowed their notion of H as a surd...
bindi-Hindi...
                          'indi...
     '   (this denotes a surd,
**** it, leave the letter out) -
esp. in names, like Khahn -
                        some variation of Ghengis,
Khan...    i suspect...
      oh yeah... the macron above the vowel
looks plain ugly: Kān...
   the literate can't reconfigure that word...
they need two languages of the same
tongue... the optical (Khan)...
             and the phonetic (Kān)...
look at you pretty people...
           you're bilingual already!
Brenda E Suhan Jun 2015
Not the emotion, but the numbness
that can ****, a sum
of vacancy of feeling and void
in the chest, devoid
of care while bleeding out
under anesthesia spread to every nerve throughout.  

A dry eye
can be the worst goodbye,
because a wound
never did heal with apathy, doomed
to infect every apology and cry
that attempts to resolve each and every lie.

But the rhythm of my fingers
stringing thought by thought,
like a surgical thread closing my heart,
is my only sense that lingers.

-bes-
nosipho Aug 2012
Lost in daze, even though this path I have played,
it sat as a record in my mind, played over and over again
and I knew what to do,
my thinking, my actions, yes i will be ready
the minute i cross that road.



I have watched Cinderella leave her shoe,
O’ what love for a prince to find,
To send horses trotting to her doorstep,
Chariots and king’s man,
O Cinderella-happy ever after!

Aaaaah! It is wonderful.

At night I would have dreams about you Cinderella,
Being snow white, awakened by my prince,
And so I mastered the art to wait,
Yes, I will scrub floors, play with the dwarfs,
Singing my hearts tunes -knowing,
In a shining armour my prince will come,
And we will live happily ever after.
Like I have seen it in my mind.


So here I am, there, sitting -waiting,
Hearing the words as you are speaking,
The world I once thought was far,
Meeting with my reality and hush…

I am “There”

Be it that I be a Cinderella or a fairy,
The collision of reality makes to wish
That such fantasies were true,

And now that I am here, You prince you came.
With my shoes, in a shining armour,
But nothing like my fantasy.
I could blame you for not being the prince
I had in my dreams, how could you betray me!


I mean I love you but why is it not like I imagined!
I want to be rescued from a tower; I want horses to make a convoy!
I want birds to sing my happiness; I want flowers to sprout at my joy!
I want to grow wings and fly! That is how I know it!.
Why is not like shrek or fiona, or the Barbie or the princess in aladin!.


Marriage is holy,

Two people are joined in matrimony,
They become one to reflect his glory,
And the lord orchestrates it to reflect him,
O’ the angels blow their trumpets,
And the lord dances over the union with singing,
For then his image on earth is portrayed,
A covenant of eternity,
As that of his bride, as the groom.

However, On earth.

Frustrations grab our minds,
And we wonder if we right,
Is he the one! Did we go wrong!

You see when two become one,
All their flaws are exposed,
For no two people can be two in one,
Some trees need to fall,
The flesh is stretched for both,
The bone is taken with no anesthetic,

Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh,
You never know till you hit this road,
Happily ever after, but not mention- after what?

Because marriage is holy, some things are refined,
100% human 80% God, God works with no fractions,
See, in him we need to be whole,
for in the one lies a deeper purpose and
when these two come together, there might be a collision.
For marriage is holy and as one you are selfish,
but when two come together,
they are drawn to selflessness.

I can no longer eat the pizza alone, but think of my significant other,
Uhhh! No longer will live but need the care like my father.
Marriage is HARD!


You never know until you there,
The vinedresser prunes the branches, tweaking them slowly,
They fall to the ground, trampled.
For the purpose of matrimony is to make us like him.
Christ as the head joined to the Body,
The husband joined to the wife,
A beautiful gift that God gives to man!
Take me again, he says- be like Christ!

In marriage we are given an opportunity to reflect his glory,
To imitate his kindness, compassion and love,
To experience the intimacy that Christ has for us,
It is no longer about lifting our eyes to the sky,
But Christ comes as a groom to his bride,
He comes to share himself between husband and wife,
What gift it is, more than Cinderella or snow white and her dwarfs,
More than earthly treasures, it’s the beauty to share a life.


To our carnal minds, and fleshly ways,
Marriage is a ***** or a thorn,
And whatever joy it brings,
We know that Christ his grace he gives,
But we know that for his glory we love,
Each other, but together love him,
And happily we will leave,
In endurance of all things.
Marriage....Marriage is beautiful!

I never knew, I ‘am there’
Joshua Wooten Aug 2016
ouranos is pulling a thread
in and out of the pinhole stars
as earth slips it's orbit -
atlas dreams of endless oceans, waves
and his planet sleeps on driftwood,
careening quietly from its perch,
boundless in its fleeing fall
from tired shoulders and arms.
the planet sifts through stardust
and it's occupants rifle through reason,
fiddle with contrition.
what information was misread -
who's to blame for the falling sky?

time moves through amber and sap,
too slow to count with blinking digital numbers
or those in ardent analog.
why do the clocks' hands have icy fingers?
glaciers call the seconds years
and so "time" is no more -
the sun cannot thaw the hands
that push the past away
and pull the future to articulate itself.
the present is collateral to the two
in their eternal twirl through non-being.
the duet becomes a triad
and the triad: a singularity,
but it is not a violent transition -
no, it's edges are soft.
they are soft.
the mind calms at this softness.
time is such a strange, absurd idea
MBJ Pancras Dec 2011
(This verse is painted for my Loving Daughter P Suzanna Christy on her 8th birthday)

It was the day she began to move out,
She’d been in the cradle of her mother’s womb
Some seven years before silently in her dreams,
And her dreams! Who knows? But He knows.

Her mother, yea, yet to be a mother then!
Then in her travail, yet rejoicing in God’s Gift,
With her friend and neighbors close by she was wriggling.

Her father, yea, yet to be a father then!
Then in his journey, anxious, yet praying all the way,
None but the Father in Christ is beside him.

She reaches the eighth milestone of life,
How she hath reached is by His Mercy.

I remember the day of entry into the world,
She made a cry within and it was not heard unto us,
We could not know why she had cried within,
But we know for she had prayed within,
And now we’ve learnt that her first cry would be to Him.

Her mother’s friend took her in his arms,
And showered thousand kisses on her tiny forehead,
And it is he always the God-sent providence unto them.

Her mother rose from her anesthetic sleep,
And her every breath, it’s the fact, pronounced THANKS unto HIM.
She longed for her God’s Gift and took her in her arms of love.
I watched her imprinting kisses on the silky cheeks.
Every one wept and there were tears of joy,
I collected those tears in the deep of my heart.

She hath reached the eighth milestone of life:
She flutters as the dancing star in the sky,
Like the tiny trout in the running brook she plays,
Sweet like the ripe apple ‘midst the orchard,
‘cross the horizons of joy and laughter she traverses,
Dressed in the Blessings from Above,
She looks purple with floating frilled skirt,
She wears the smiles of her mother,
Filled with friendly wishes from her school mates,
She walks amidst the song of her little blooms.
I can’t hold her joy she experiences,
And so her mother shares it with her
And too with her for she hath carried my prayer in her womb.

She grows with the Heavenly Grace,
And does proclaim the Glory of Heaven in her life.
Now she’s a little plant to grow more flowers,                
And every flower shall be the message of His Mercy
On my daughter's eighth birthday
robin Aug 2013
my first wedding will be a seance because
there is always destruction in my wake
and my words only make sense in your mouth -
i put a ******* hurricane behind your lips
and went silent when you ripped apart
i slit my throat over your coffee and i
think i understand now
why you didn't flinch
(someone is using you and i told you not to be so ******* gullible
and you said -better to be wrung dry,
better to be used to death
that to leave anyone
alone-)
lypophrenia lypemania lyssophobia i find it fitting that lysis means both
recovery
and the destruction of cells
because you said i saved you every day while i watched you
erode
slowly
i gave you love and told you it was armor i'm
so sorry for all the holes in your chest cause i
set you against yourself you tore out your heart you cut off
your left arm
to make more room for me
(you said to me
-i'm not as masochistic
as you think
and i don't pretend to be some sort of *******
martyr
but everyone has a purpose and mine is to be used-)
i've got mouth full of blood and fading anesthetic i need a distraction i hate
thinking about myself because
(i am caught between conflicting states
of lies
and nonexistence)
burn my fingers on a lightbulb and think of you,
trade numb limbs for phantom pain and try to learn to walk slow
to let your ghost catch up to me,
let anxiety pool in my calves so you don't feel so alone
let panic return to my diaphragm so i don't leave you behind
(you asked why i walk like i'm running from
ex friends ex memories ex selves
as long as i move i don't have to think i'll sweat out one more lie and never think of it again
i'll keep my teeth clenched so my diaphragm is a prison)
oh treachery! fraud!
i say so many words and don't know what any mean,
i take an oath for a god whose face i've never seen whose hand i've never held and whose scent
could not compare to
the smell of you in my bed the
smell of your shampoo in the rooms you haunt,
you lie limp on the floor and tell me stories of
jesus,
love and life
who fed himself to the hungry until he was nothing
-my body, my blood- you say
-my body,
my blood,
sustenance for the weak,
nourishment for the starved-
your hipbones through your skin (maybe you should feed yourself) i say
and you laugh
(someone is using you don't make me say it just don't be so naive
someone is using you i am using you you are the vessel for my violence and
emotional death is less apparent than physical and sometimes
you don't
realize
that you've been dead since october)
my first wedding will be a seance.
we will say our vows through an oracle
i dont need anything but proof that this ghost
will haunt me.
this ghost will remain and their scent will fill the room.
this ghost
won't believe when i lie
when i bleed into your coffee,
do not drink.
watch the ph rise like floods.
wait for my apology.
when the haruspex tells you the future is bleak,
believe them.
leave me.
make armor from discarded wedding bands.
do not be used again.
Juliet Escobar May 2014
An endless waterfall of emptiness
leave her, love her, hurt her, she does not care
she longs to care but she is covered and bundled in a thick quilt that poisons her everything with “nothing”
something is missing, the tears are missing
she knew she would be okay because of the streams that would flow furiously down her cotton felt rosy cheeks
she knew she would be okay because of the tender most voluntary light tears dancing gracefully across the marbled floor that was her face
but now,
she does not know if she will be okay because of the dessert like dryness of her eyes,
and the solitude her cheeks and lips have felt for quite some time now
something is missing, she is missing
she has been looking for what seems like a million years all over her now pitch black universe for herself
she had colors
she had stars, moons, millions of suns and planets within her
now the color black is the mere most perfect description of everything she has become
the battle between deciding what to feel out of all that she felt is over
she feels as an invisible soul that has passed from our physical world feels;
anger, rage because he is truly incapable of touching those who he stands infront of all day, he cannot do anything about the fact that he is invisible and non existent to all those he wishes to be noticed by
she feels anger, rage because she finds herself incapable of touching her emotions
frustration because tears no longer dance across her face
she feels invisible to her reflection in the mirror because she remembers the image of a person
an actually person
who is able to cry when sad and smile when happy
she is no longer able to show any physical emotion so she sees no reflection
a thick black fog invades her physical body and soul crawling through her eye sockets, her mouth, ears ,nostrils, and pours
it invades her psyche with all its blackness and abducts all the stars, moons many suns, and planets converting her inner universe into endless caves made of  millions of tunnels that make love with emptiness and darkness
she has become a maze
beautifully numb, impatiently lost, sedated by absence



she is me, and i,
have been kissed by apathy.
paralyzing me and incapacitating me from myself is what this beautiful demon has done to me
she touched my lips and altered my thoughts
persuaded me into the belief that she would protect me
she told me that if i did not feel i would not hurt
at the time that i fell in love with her i was in a state where i would of taken my life just to end all feelings and confusion within me
she offered her anesthetic kiss,  
i took it
as she relentlessly took over me i started to realize…
now i fear it be to late
i know the end to this maze will be the gate to my stars, my moons, my many suns, and planets
and i will run for what now seems an eternity
but i will not give up on my universe




j.e
Your words cut like scalpels
Through hair skull and scalp
Culling the cunning thoughts
My Foolish heart has bought

But your blade is truth
No anesthetic
Can dull, numb or soothe
Unsympathetic

It removes the lie
Like a tumor
Until my life's
A rumor
Ann Beaver May 2013
I line the pills up
white and blue:
almost patriotic.
You don't notice
my back against the wall:
a wild wolf call
for fight or flight.
I always pick flight.
Almost patriotic,
what happened to your American bite?
A helicopter hovers
over bleeding covers
and blonde news anchors
say, "its much worse then it is."
Almost patriotic
Almost pathetic
Almost an anesthetic.
Nicole Corea Dec 2016
You promised me love,
While you break my heart
at the crack of dawn,
You promise me happiness,
While you inflict a scar in every memory.

I beg , let me be your everlasting light.
While you fill mine with darkness.
I say, please love me in way I love you.
While you take pieces of my soul.
And I cry , cry for the seasons to change
There you are stopping the time.
Rounds and rounds of ticks .
Recycle on unrequited love
Every night at break of dawn.

You promise me heaven ,
While dragging me to the gateway of hell.
You promise me comfort ,
While making me feel empty.

I taunt, let me be your every lasting kiss,
While you fill my lips with hate.
I yell, let me be the one you come home to.
While you run away to her...
And I pray , oh I pray for the pain to swell.
There you are injecting me with anesthetic.
Swelling over and over this unrequited love.
Every crack of dawn.

I fight, so many lies underline in my mind,
While you spoke love into my heart.
I protest, there's no love ,
While you confess to me this what I deserve
I sway I sway I sway for another shot
Drink and drink because of this unrequited love
Every crack of midnight.

I beg , beg, to forget this everlasting pain...
Leelan Farhan Oct 2013
Open up to me, he says
But inside there is nothing but void
Feel a little, he says
Little does he know
Every word that spills from his mouth
Injects itself into my blood
The anesthetic that numbs my soul
Listen to me, he yells
But all I hear is noise.

They want to fix me
Want to hammer out the perfect girl
To fit into their crumbling little world
-- a doll to beautify their cemetery
their collection of hollowed out bodies.
I may be empty but I’ve already been a token
Too many times.

Let me fix you, they say.
But all they do is break me.
Take more from me.
Let me fix you, they say.
Never once did they ask to heal me.
Try to glue me back together.
I’m already open.
But I was broken into.
Robbed.
Shattered
Hammered.
Invaded.
I’m already open
But you don’t like what you see
I guess it’s not pretty to watch me bleed.
I’m already open.
But you don’t like what you’ve found.
******* away the pain won’t do no good,
So put me back down.
Inject me with your silent poison and
Put

Me

Down.

                                 *-lf-
© Leelan Farhan
   Oct 29 2013
Ben Sep 2013
i sit here and overdose in my imagination for the fifth time today
too poor to **** myself with a pharmaceutical fantasy no pain just sleep
it's a matter of time before i'm found swinging in my basement necrotic windchime
i'm not so much a poet as a sad kid rambling who can only write inebriated
this one time life thing is getting me sick and i just don't..
**** me i thought i was stronger than this yet years with a **** job
no girl and 5 weeks a night of left hand ******* while i choke down
another bottle bottle bottled my emotions in a seven dollar anesthetic
i've been romanticizing a wished for **** addiction at least that would be an
excuse for why i'm a wasted wasting waste of life doomed to insecurity
i can't even remember half the words i learned in school
you're probably sick of my self loathing and every poem i write is
just another narcissistic cry for help because i'm to proud to ball up and cry
don't even bother this time i don't want your reason for why i can't top myself
kick my bucket, burn my farm, pluck out my eyes and puke till i die
i'm ******* done i'm just too tired to try
to all those girls i never kissed - i love you
to all those ******* i never hit - i love you
to that boy that i might have found myself with - i love you
to my best best best friends the few that i have - i love you
i was never comfortable in my skin
maybe i'll  be comfortable in my grave
just a thought
i'm past caring what people know
i can't seem to feel anymore
Keith Moody Jun 2017
Sometimes I wish I had
something to ease the pain

Sometimes my skin
is to sensitive
to even go out in the rain

Sometimes the pain leaves
but most of the time
the pain stays

Sometimes the pain
begins to ease
but it comes back most days

Sometimes I would think
the pain would
never leave

But now I've found something
to ease the pain
so now I can breathe

Writing for me
has gotten rid of
all the bruises scars and sores

Writing is my
anesthetic
what is yours
?
N Oct 2014
The smell of death seeps through the cracks of locked doors where you hide the side of yourself that you never let me see. I keep having search parties for the key but I've finally convinced myself that you buried it along with all the other hearts you've broken. The blood stains on the ceiling are reminders that in some cases the last place I want to go is up, and laying breathless at the bottom of a lake is a better way to drown out the sound of “I love you” seeping through your clenched teeth.
When I was 10 years old I first heard the word ‘anesthesia’ come from the mouth of my best friend whose mother died a year before, and she told me that it meant she was numb to everything. Nothing could make her feel anything which is probably why she danced with death and there were rope burns around her neck as she lay in a casket 3 years later.
It escaped my mouth for the first time yesterday when I saw you walking towards me with a smile on your face and a gun in your hand and the realization hit me before the bullet did; sometimes the side that is hidden from us is the side we’re trying to escape from. But my fear of death subsides every time I stand before you, why else do you think I ever let your mouth meet mine? The consequence is just as dangerous. You’re just as poisonous. There’s no way to escape this.
I find myself standing in the middle of busy streets where cars hit me but I don’t die. I find myself waiting for the train, but never at the station. I find myself in places and I can’t remember how I got there but death always looks me hungrily in the eye and loses its appetite as soon as it gets close enough to take my breath away.
I want to quit breathing, but I don’t. This feeling is so strong yet contradicting. So powerful yet, so nonchalant. It was last night as I lay on a bed with sheets covered in my blood that I came to a conclusion...death is my anesthetic, and you've been giving it to me in doses.
K Balachandran Mar 2015
Blood, now boils quick, it's intense, he is in fire,
on her every touch, there is a special anesthetic
a poisonous binge, causes tidal waves go berserk
in his stream of blood,tangible effects of arousal results,

body now is a vast field,  goosebumps sprout like spotted
magic mushrooms after a night long rain and thunderclaps,
the salacious intent of the scent of woman,wafts,
singing pheromones perfectly rhyme with *** center
of the brain, "Ï am addicted to tarantula's love"
his whisper sounds ominous, tarantula casts her net

Serpentine vines tangle on wild trees,in natural history
museum premises,trees fall down and rise, create leaf beds
dark enclosures where lovers escape the detection of radars,
explore,the unbridled ascent of carnal wishes,as if a permit
is ingrained in the scent of exotic orchids wafting in the wind,
allowing the wild run of instincts, a dam burst, here cobras prowl,
tarantulas, at a quick look are exposed ******* with dark *******,
on eight legs the desire stands,waiting for the next ***** lover,

She was watching an insatiable pair of tarantulas in elaborate
mating rituals,they move inside, cracks and burrows,concealed
by the cover of darkness,they come out,to eat the night flowers,
exhaling ****** hunger; their dark, devious fingers, touching, caressing
finding each other's intimate  parts has a dark frenzy...
he saw the blue glimmer of a concealed weapon,smeared on by amour,
as they tumble in bed,she flashes her most venomous smile,
like the quick move of the sharp end of a bodkin,
Tarantula's love affair,when it all are over, her lover's end comes near.
Miko May 2013
Deaden
eat the anesthetic
immobilize
you've swallowed the sickness
tense
and digest
realize
the condition is terminal
if you keep on
this prosthetic infection
numb
gone to affection
substantial reality
unfeigned
you're taking wired
deceit
and tainted
addictive
lies
hollow promises
that fade out
and two time your eyes
that engorge in getting progressively
horrendous
planting a holocaust within your
insides
that hurts
that stains
that agonizes
the many around you
those few close to you
ripping them up
destroying that one that would do anything
for you
their lives
and yes you too
it doesn't forget
it can't
it takes it all into account
even when you don't
when you can't
it gleefully watches the struggle
the diseased suffering
and you keep on trekking that
self destructive trail
in the midst of a mist
so unsure
and insecure
keeping you grounded
in a life that's actually not
and it's turning those
in sequence
to actually nots
recall?
but you don't
or can't
who can tell?
but
instead of ruining
this real world
live what's actually there
face it
with them
and yourself
as just yourself
even with the little
painsake mistakes
there's a
glistening future ahead
refine time
to be here
awake
nothing else
but you
alive
tabachikoi Jun 2014
Overnight alone, swifting out to be disport
Nonetheless I'm numb to loneliness
Begging please I don't want you in my head
Because the truth is I'm numb about you

Got home, Still alone no one's there
Time fades fast I didn't even see it coming
There are things still obscene on my thoughts
The last way I reckon is to turnaway from the past

Because a girl like you also feels the way I do
And sometimes we're just like puzzled on whatever we do
Tears are not needed to be seen..no more
I don't want to forget but I know thats also the end

Did I forget how to love?
Or my heartache is the reason why
Even how many times I got hurt
I still can't leave ...you
Charles Barnett Sep 2012
This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
For it no longer echoes in my ears, in my fingers,
in my tongue. These endless digits fallen instantaneously
numb like a local anesthetic or winter basement nights
alone in the dark.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
It's melodic tones and overtures, the way it wraps
around words like my hands around your curves.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
And how I fed on it like the word of God.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
B L Costello Aug 2016
Before you became a diabetic,
Before the pain and the anesthetic,
We ate,
We smoked,
We slept past noon,
We played until we were out of tune,
We laughed at the cost,
“Go ahead…bill me,
I guess something has to **** me”,
And now…it is,
Imagine that,
But ****,
I miss being stupid and fat
© B L Costello 2016
KatieM Nov 2011
“This is an intervention.” he says
My hands dance on the table on which I've laid my keys.
“W-why?” I stutter.
A thousand thoughts race through my mind.
What do they know?
What did they find?
The Razors?
The knives?
The gun?
The letters?
The bloodstained sheets for every time I lose my little bit of self-control?
The bottle for every time I want to lose that self-control?
“Not for you” he says.
My lungs deflate.
Not me.
Not me.
Not me.
“Who?”
“Danny.”
Danny?
“Why?”
“We think-
we think he might me suicidal”
“What?”
What?
Danny?
Suicidal?
No.
They're clueless.
Danny-
Danny keeps me alive.
He keeps me from using that gun.
I'm the one close to the edge,
not him
I want to scream.
To tell them how stupid          they are.
                        Can they not see it’s me-
not him?
“W-why would you think that?”
“We found a gun.”
My mind spins.
         A gun?
In Danny’s room?
Why?
“And a note.”
A note?
No.
No.
No.
No.
This can’t be happening.
Danny’s supposed to be strong.
He’s supposed to be my angel.
I’m the one who’s supposed to be broken.
Not him.
“We think he’s trying
to convince himself
not to.
The note-
it said
‘Don’t do it.
Think of all the good things.
Think of the people
who have no idea.
The people that love you,
would be devastated if you
pulled the trigger.
Don’t
do
it.’”
My heart stops.
I want to run into my room
grab my bottle
my razors,
maybe my gun.
I should have seen it.
Helping me was helping him.
“C’mon, sit down.
Wait for Danny.”
I sit,
curling my legs under me
so my knees don’t shake.
We wait in silence
My mind is in my room.
controlling the pain,
watching the razor glint in the sunlight,
slicing through flesh,
silent.
My mind is watching the blood well up,
watching t run down my wrist,
watching it fall slowly
hitting the sheet
being soaked up in a perfect ring.
My mind feels the cold metal
as I run my hands along the contours
of my escape.
My mind wonders what death is like.
What if I pulled the trigger
and found out?
What if-?
The door opens.
My mind is ****** back to the present.
“Danny.
This is an intervention.”
His keys drop onto the table next to mine.
“Why?” he asks,
confused, but calm.
“Danny,
we are your friends.
We care about you.
We’d miss you if you were gone.”
He hangs up his coat.
“What are you talking about?”
He sits across from me, staring into my eyes.
Looking for some clue to what was going on.
I look away.
I can’t take it.
“Danny,
we found the gun.”
His head snaps up.
His eyes bore into mine.
“You found that?”
“Yeah, and the note too.
Danny, we love you.
Don’t do it.”
He looks away from me for a moment.
“Excuse me?”
Jake puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Danny, we know you…
want to-
commit suicide.”
“What?!
You think I-
that I
that I’m suicidal?”
He leaps up.
“Danny, this is a safe place.
We love you.
You can talk to us.
We just want to help.”
He stares at me.
“So you
all
think I’m-
suicidal?”
“Yeah, we do, Dan.”
Jake says.
I can feel Danny’s eyes on me.
I keep staring at the floor.
“I-
I guess you got me.”
My head snaps up.
What?
Got him?
He’s really…?
“It’s just sometimes-
sometimes I feel as if-“
I recognize these words.
“life’s not worth living.”
They’re my words.
Exactly what I told him
only six months ago.
“I don’t know why.”
he repeats word for word
His eyes say glued to mine.
Oh my God.
“I know I’ve got people
that love me.
I just can’t help it
sometimes.”
I want to run.
I don’t want to hear this.
I understand now.
It’s not him.
He’s doing this for me.
“I’m sorry.”
Hours go by.
He repeats what I said to him.
Word for word.
I need to get out.
Now.
I might go crazy.
I might scream.
“IT’S NOT DANNY!
The gun is MINE!
The note is for ME!
I’m the one who’s suicidal.
Look at MY wrists.
Danny keeps me alive,
he’s not suicidal.
You’re so blind.
You don’t realize how close I am
to just ending it all.
You don’t see past all the
half-hearted
‘I’m fine’s
‘I’m okay’s
and
‘Don’t worry about me’s.
They’re all lies
I’ve been telling you for
over
a
year.
Wake up.”
Then I’d run to my room,
pull out my razors,
start there.
Let the pain
numb my mind.
So that when I
pull out my knives
I don’t feel the increase
in pressure.
I don’t feel how deep I’m going.
Blood streams down my wrists.
I close my eyes.
I don’t want to.
I try to force my eyelids apart.
They open a tiny bit.
Everything is still black.
I can’t see.
My head feels light.
I’m floating.
I can’t feel anything,
just one arm.
It’s warm.
It tingles.
Faintly,
I hear something slam.
Voices, shouting
in whispers.
I can’t understand.
They need to speak up.
I try to open my mouth to tell them.
I can’t.
Something presses on my warm arm.
I barely feel it.
I feel something lifting me.
I’m being carried.
Downstairs.
What is going on?
I hear something familiar.
I can’t figure out what it is.
Wee woo. Wee woo. Wee woo.
Sirens.
What is going on?
I’m being laid down.
I hear doors slam.
I’m moving again.
Some kind of vehicle.
Oh.
My
God.
Blackout.
Shouting.
Sirens.
Vehicle.
Oh.
My.­
God.
I went too deep.
I’m dying.
After a year of wondering,
I know.
I know what dying is like.
It’s calm.
I’m surprised.
I thought the process would hurt.
But no.
This is nice.
Somehow I know
death will be better.
I try to let it take over.
I can feel it trying now.
It wants to consume me.
to pull me under.
Make me fall asleep
and never wake up.
I want it to.
I’m not fighting.
But I still won’t die.
Why?
I try to relax.
I try to pretend I’m already dead.
I’m floating
just in nothingness.
It works.
I feel myself drift off.
Before I lose consciousness,
I have one thought.
‘Goodbye.’

Something stings.
A sharp pain in my right arm.
Why?
I’m supposed to be dead.
There shouldn’t be pain.
My left arm is stiff.
What is going on?
Maybe this is Hell.
Maybe that’s why I’m in pain.
Oh
my
God!
I am in Hell!
Why?
What did I do that was so awful?
Suicide, I know,
but still.
I don’t deserve Hell.
I try to open my eyes,
but everything is bright.
Too bright.
Artificially bright.
Something smells weird.
Like anesthetic.
Cleaner.
I hear a beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Why does Hell feel like a hospital?
I force my eyes open.
Everything is white.
White bed.
White walls.
White door.
White floor.
A machine is sitting next to me.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
A green line dashes across the monitor,
following five double triangles.
My arms still stings.
An IV leads to a bag of clear liquid.
My left arm is heavily bandaged.
What kind of Hell is this?
The door opens.
Danny walks in.
“Hey.” he says.
“Hi.” I say quietly.
He sits in the chair next to the bed.
carefully, he takes my hand.
“What were you thinking?
I thought you said
you’d never go this far.
You said you had it under control.
You were trying to stop.”
He stares at me.
Waiting.
“I-
I don’t know.
I was trying.
Just…
hearing what everyone said.
Hearing my words
come out of your mouth.
Realizing how stupid they are.
I couldn’t take it.
I couldn’t listen to it anymore.
I had to get out of there.
So I screamed what I did.
Then I went in my room and-
started cutting.
I didn’t mean to go so deep.
I didn’t realize I did it.
Danny,
I’m sorry.”
“I know.
When you-
lost consciousness,
you had-
a smile on your face.
Why?”
I close my eyes.
I try to remember.
Everything is hazy.
I remember darkness.
I remember being pulled down.
I remember letting myself be pulled.
I remember wanting it.
Wanting to die.
I shiver.
“I-
I thought I was going to die.”
Danny’s jaw tightens.
“And that was a thought to make you smile?
I thought you said you didn’t mean to
go so deep.”
“I didn’t mean to.
It just…
happened.
And once it did,
well,
there wasn’t anything I could do.
So I just-
welcomed it.
I wanted it.
I was happy about it.”
He pulls his hand from mine.
“You wanted to die.”
he says calmly.
“You knew that.
You’ve known that
for six months.”
“No.
I knew you thought about dying.
I knew you thought about finding an easy out.
I knew you wanted an escape.
If I had known
that you wanted
to die
I would’ve kept my mouth shut.
I wouldn’t have bothered trying to save you.
If only I had known you were a lost cause,
we wouldn’t be here.”
I’m speechless.
What do I say to that?
How do I respond to hearing I’m not
worth saving?
“D-Danny. How could
you say that to me?
You know how I-
how I am.
You know what started this.
You know-“
“I know what
I know. But I didn’t
know how far gone you were.
If I had…
Well,
what’s the point?
You’re intent on
ending your
life.
I  can’t stop you.
I wish you wouldn’t.
But it’s out of my control.”
He stands,
and I’m surprised
I have no tears to shed.
He’s right.
I would have messed up
eventually.
Or I would have done it on purpose
eventually.
I’m not savable.
There’s no hope for me
anymore.
Assuming there was any
to begin with.
I glance down at my arm
wrapped in white
the end tucked somewhere
I can’t even see.
I suppose that’s so I don’t unwrap it.
They must have told
what happened.
Though I think
it’s pretty obvious.
I feel along it, trying to find
a way
to unwrap it.
This is it.
If I had died
before,
it would have been an
accident.
An accident
I could have avoided
and that I caused,
but I had no
intention
to commit
at that moment.
But now?
Now it’s intentional.
I slip the fingers of my right hand
under the edge
and pull.
The bandage begins to unravel,
so much fabric!
I find the stitches
holding my life in.
I pull the IV
put of my right arm,
letting the tube dangle above the floor.
I take one last deep breath,
and yank at the stitches.
My blood starts
poring
out, soaking the sheet
and the bed
and dripping to the floor.
The last thing I hear,
before I lose consciousness
for the last time
is the IV.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip….
Today I extended a hand to fate
To see which door it would pull me through,
And it chose the one I was afraid of.

Today I put the universe to test
Since challenging authority is always best,
And it pulled me along for the ride.

Today I stood on railroad tracks
Because I wondered if I was invincible
And I wasn’t.

Today I sliced myself open
For I’d forgotten the pattern of my soul’s veins
And I remembered.

So I closed my eyes and bit my lip
And jumped right off that breaking ship
And into waves of foamy spray,
Which tended to my bleeding way,
The held me and caressed me so,
And whispered of the things they know
They carried me to sandy banks
And left me dreaming, giving thanks.

I awoke in a pool of scarlet,
feeling the wretched tendrils
of darker, greener enemies
working their way in while I slept.

I awoke in a pool of scarlet,
Knowing what I had to do
And applied antiseptic,
But no anesthetic.

I awoke,
Knowing why fate chose this door,
Knowing where the universe had taken me,
Knowing that though broken, I’d survived,
Knowing what it was to be me.

Knowing not to let the poison in
And not to let the shadows win.
09/30/12




I thought this was for Morgan. But it's for me.
Victor D López Mar 2019
Justice is unjust,
When it merely imposes,
The will of the state.

_______

Justice
Time: The all too near future
Place: A courtroom
Setting: Final sentencing of a prisoner convicted of the last remaining capital offense on the books of a kinder, gentler, fairer world in which equality is no longer a mere aspiration.
________

The prisoner stared impassively into the camera. The bright lights causing beads of sweat to form above his eyes and forcing him to squint, his perspiration-soaked thinning hair flattened unflatteringly against his forehead. No sound could be heard other than the faint hum of the air conditioning whose airflow was directed from the high ceiling above the high seats of the three judge panel, towards the three judges, keeping their immediate area comfortably cool. The camera trained on them remained a respectful distance away, and no harsh lights illuminated their somber countenances.

All three judges stared at the camera showing no emotion, their hands folded in front of them on the surface of their capacious bench on top of three equal stacks of paper placed before them. Everywhere on earth citizens watched the unfolding drama over the neural net that provided a fully immersive experience indistinguishable from reality, effectively placing every citizen on the planet in the courtroom as the Chief Judge began to speak in a deep, resonant, clear voice.

“The evidence against you has been examined. This tribunal finds you guilty of the charges against you by a unanimous vote. Have you anything to say before we pass sentence?”

The camera cuts back to the prisoner. The lights brighten around him and the heat rises perceptibly, adding fresh fuel to the trickle of sweat flowing down his flushed face, causing a bead of sweat to form at the end of his nose that he is unable to swat away because his wrists are restrained by metal bands at the armrests of his metal chair, outside the viewing range of the camera’s tight zoom on his face.

“I am guilty of no crime,” the prisoner protests in a low voice full of palpable weariness and resignation.

“You are guilty of the most heinous of crimes,” the Chief Judge contradicts, raising his voice and causing the prisoner to cringe.
“That is not open to debate. This is your final chance to make what amends you may to those whom you have harmed through your selfish, deviant act. It will have no effect on this Court’s sentence.”

“But I have done nothing wrong,” the man emphatically protests again, as ribbons of perspiration roll down his neck and deepen the growing ring of dark sweat absorbed by his bright orange jumpsuit, leaving a collar of dark moisture around his neck.

“Silence!” the Chief Judge hisses through tight lips. “The record will show that the prisoner is unrepentant. This Court finds that he willfully, maliciously and without justification removed his neural connector with the purpose and effect of severing his connection to the neural nets. We further find that the motivating factor for this most egregious, malevolent and repugnant crime was the attempt to abandon the Common Consciousness and establish his individuality separate and apart from the Communal Mind. We further find that the subject is in full possession of his legal faculties and capable of understanding the criminal nature of his acts, and, perhaps most tragically, that he fails to see the enormity of his crime.” The Chief Justice faltered slightly, delivering the final words of the Court’s sentence with a slight tremor in his voice. After stopping a moment to compose himself as his learned colleagues looked on impassively, he continued. “It is, therefore, the judgment of this Court that you will forever remain disconnected from the nets from this day forward.”

Upon hearing the Judge’s words the prisoner’s eyes opened wider, attempting to digest their import. Could it be? Might he finally be allowed the what he believed to be his unalienable right to be an individual for the first time in his life? The opportunity to live in a world in which he could have original thoughts, genuine emotions, privacy and the opportunity to be different from everyone else? The joy he felt nearly made him faint with relief and unbridled joy, allowing him for the first time in his life the possibility of hope as tears welled in his eyes.

He found he could not speak, could not express even the simple words “thank you” to the Court. It was as though he were emerging from a life-long nightmare, as if. . .

“The prisoner’s IP address, 999.999.999.999, shall be erased from the Nets,” the Judge continued as the prisoner’s tears now flowed freely. “His existence shall be forever stricken from the Collective Consciousness lest it germinate there and once again grow sedition in our midst.” The prisoner wept openly now while smiling broadly.
“The death sentence for this most heinous of crimes is hereby commuted so that the prisoner may be allowed the individuality he craves for the rest of his natural life, devoid of the comfort of our collective humanity or the distracting influences of life.”

The Chief Judge then paused and took a deep breath, as the prisoner shuddered with relief. He then continued in a slow, resonant voice. “It is further ordered by this Court that the prisoner shall have his eyes, eardrums, tongue and olfactory organs surgically removed that he may not taste, smell, see, hear, or speak with any other human being for the rest of his natural life. Thereafter, he is remanded to a hospital where he shall be restrained to a bed and tended to by robotic life support aids that he may be denied the comfort of feeling another human beings warm touch upon his skin. The sentence of this Court shall be carried out immediately and shall be witnessed by all the citizens of Earth as partial reparation for this most heinous of crimes against humanity.”

The prisoner’s screams lasted only a few moments as an anesthetic was administered and the cameras were re-arranged in preparation for justice to be carried out.

(C) 2011, 2019 Victor D. Lopez - All rights reserved.
This haiku is based on the shortest short story I've ever written that is one of the stories included in my Mindscapes: Ten Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories. For those who have sometimes requested that I should expand on the themes of my haikus, I've included the short story itself following the haiku that inspired it. Careful what you ask for . . . :)
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2017
it always comes out of america, it really does!
  you start listening to these guys
in the 21st century talking about psychedelic
"pioneers" from the 20th century...
- hey man! like take this l.s.d.
- n'ah man! d.m.t.! 15min of fab!
- magic mushrooms!
               to be honest, i wouldn't do that -
i don't know why i wouldn't...
       maybe because it's no longer a secret?
carlos casteneda's anthropological study
of a yaqui shaman, don juan -
and don juan says: keep it to yourself!
but no... the americans in the 20th century
had to write poetry... shout the mystic experience
from the rooftops!
and i'm like: well... that's ruined, what's the point
of doing these eywa roots?
              eywa? the avatar planet goddess...
i'd love to have tried those things,
but these fungi have been contaminated by
other people's experiences, which they noted down...
is it really that bad? someone might ask...
                                               yes!
it's a bit like disrespecting other people's privacy,
the term privacy? should anyone attempt it...
          you can easily create junkies that way...
i was watching this video once...
  this american girl went in search of ayahuasca
in south america...
   she posted regular videos...
                             after a few videos, and she's
back home in america...
                   she's no longer eating / smoking it...
whatever... she's injecting it...
             move it back to europe...
                                    well, compared to you
"cool kids" in america... (apart from the dutch)...
  we're still going: give us enough *****
and a good song, some tobacco and we tell you
of mysticism of another kind: the type you see
with your naked eyes.
            i can't remember how many times
i had mystical(?) experiences drinking and listening
to music... usually nordic, but also germanic
music... ok even some slavic music...
                               english music?
                          you trying to bribe with candy
and a heart-numbing anesthetic?
                    you think i'd emotionally get-off
on english music? some henry the 8th greensleeves
suite?                        but, it's, only, alcohol...
   i'll mystify alcohol for you... end up feeling
so much that you have to burst into tears
    without any "enlightening" images,
geometric geriatrics...
                                i base everything on sounds,
**** the images, if there's a heaven i want to be
sitting next to homer, blind as a bat, as he ended
up being.
                  you want to know a mystical
experience from europe?
  well... yesterday i woke up with this unforgiving
pain in my neck, like i might have popped a ******
and it got stuck in my neck...
                 i blame the builders making a racket
too early in the morning...
                      so last night i was like: that's it! i've had
enough! **** this *** is good...
      so first it was 70cl of capn' morgan's white ***,
not bad, not bad at all...
              and then onto the pièce de résistance
   capn' morgan's original spiced gold -
                    making up about a litre of ***: in m'ah belly...
i'll be doing an apache yawn in a minute:
   ap ap pa pa pa - lazy onomatopoeia, i know:
i can't be bothered exacting that battle cry...
      but the zenith of this mystical experience came
after i butchered some food (ate it like a ravenous
wolf) - but i said to myself: not tomorrow!
   i'm not going to lie in bed with a neck-ache
like i might have popped a ****** and it got stuck
in my neck (austin powers' ref. third movie?) -
   and lo! behold... i woke up today chirpy like
a sparrow... chirp chirp! chirp chirp!
                                   and did the oddest thing
imaginable... i watched a "movie" -
                      watched batman: arkham city...
the walkthrough... up to chapter 20...
                                  now i see the funny side of professional
gamers... i can sorta start to build up a respect
for them now, before today i thought they
were a joke...
                               it felt like: the opposite of an audiobook?
in my life i might have listened to about 10minutes
of 1 audiobook... couldn't stomach it...
       but these game walkthroughs? now that's an
area i'm really going to discover after today -
they're practically movies (games these days) anyway -
   i remember times when playing games
meant you had sore fingers... like the first
time you pick up the guitar and one of your arms
starts aching because your fingers are getting
fried on the copper strings...
                           for some reason i can't imagine
myself playing a game like the one i ref. -
                     i prefer the game of hacking google...
but yeah... these games are great to watch,
but actually play them?
                        i'd rather shoot myself in the foot
before i start playing them...
    so yeah, the zenith of yesterday's mystical
experience...
    a. about a litre of *** (white and amber)
        b. 25mg of amitriptyline
   and crucially    
                                    c. 500mg of naproxen.
and this is for you, *******, having ruined
       the potential of having a psychedelic experience!
i didn't want to know... but thanks for telling me...
    **** yourselves, 20th century buggers
                                      and your poetic buggery.
An acolyte of White Chapel, I walk the streets at night,

I strut the dark to feed my lust, my mildly selfish plight.

Don’t mistake me for insane, my demonic thoughts are clear,

Come to me my little *****, I show you why I’m revered.

-

I walk behind, step by step,

As I stalk my little coquette

she leaves the brothel, all dressed up,

Awaiting young gentleman to sup,

I’ve chosen this one for my knife,

It calmly grins to end her life.

-

Her caller leaves with no tip to spare,

Her saddened face hidden by her hair,

I follow her back until an alley,

The hatred then shall take my lead.

-

Twenty feet there from the door,

I felt her heart drop to the floor,

As I choked the breath out of her lungs,

I saw the sadness from being so close to home.

-

Upon my shoulder, I take her back

To the venue of my attack

I sneak through the darkest paths,

Until my home, we reach at last.

-

And at this part in my confession

I warn of the graphic, due to depression.

-

Upon my medical table she lay,

My scalpel awaits the ****** flay,

A little anesthetic, here and there,

Keeps her awake but still and fair.

-

She cannot scream but her eyes do widen

Though to be fair, my form does frighten,

When I lay my other instruments out,

Of leaving alive, I see her doubt.

-

“To business then my dear, my dear.”

Out of one eye, I spy a tear.

-

Because of paralysis I need no restraints,

She remains still, her heart remains faint,

I start with the kneecaps, just in case,

She breaks free of the spell, so I needn’t chase.

-

I place them upon my “excess” table

And then her legs I begin to cradle,

I take then every one of her toes,

And place them in a neat little row.

-

I take my time stemming the blood,

So death doesn’t come misunderstood,

Also that she may not pass out,

She remains conscious and without clout.

-

“My Sweet,

I cherish the sorrow I see in you eyes,

I enshrine the abhorrence of love I’ve revised,

acrimonious am I, animosity guides me,

I’ll **** everything you’ve ever believed.”

-

I move up onto her thighs,

Upon the blade, the sanguine does shine,

I split each side to sew again,

Except the muscle taken from within.

-

I stitch her fingers there together,

I rip out the nails to put on a tether,

Her arms have no concern to me,

Lest I graze an artery.

-

And  my favourite, the chest cavity,

I’ll make it a shrine to my depravity

Now is the point where time is a factor,

As I do this, she will die faster.

-

I hammer away with the sternum-splitter,

It cracks and cracks, her heart does flutter,

I eagle the ribcage as she stares in horror,

The sound of my laughter begins to adore her.

-

Her organs gaze up at me in fright,

I begin extracting in delight,

She looks up, looks for her God,

But he is absent, he is a fraud.

-

I witness the beating grow faster,

She is in shock, this could be disaster,

A little more solution for the pain,

But just enough so that she remains.

-

I slowly take a needle and puncture the left lung

Her other grows violent when its marriage is undone,

I extract her spleen and then,

Her heart does pump, her blood thickens.

-

Involuntary muscles in her lips tighten,

I barely catch it with her lips stitched in,

Her eyes, how they wonder everywhere,

Searching for some thing somewhere.

-

I see in them, she questions me,

‘Why have you forsaken me?’

Darling, I think that is not the question

I did this of my own suggestion,

-

You may ask why I left her womanhood alone,

Her ******* and ***** no violence shown,

To that, I answer you now and simply,

Frivolous things such as *** do not concern me.

-

You may ask why and where she may be found,

But you won’t find her, though don’t let that cloud

Your idea of me or what lies inside,

Don’t worry however, I allowed her to die,

After I had taken her precious heart,

She likely could’ve lived half a minute to start,

But at about second “fifteen”,

I cut her throat ever so gently,

She gurgled so quietly, ever somber,

I’m sure she would’ve thanked me regardless,

But in the end I don’t feel I’ve robbed a father,

After all, what father has a ***** of a daughter?

-

You will never catch me, I have no motive,

Other than sport, and a mind supported,

With thoughts of these wretched street walkers,

May they all be mindful they’ve gained a stalker,

Perhaps one day you may of me learn,

A clean city and plain interest, is all I yearn.
All estuaries flow eastbound, and the subterranean rail tracks keep forcing against the estuaries’ grain and dust foundations perpendicularly to them.*



How can a sane proposition -- a quantification of syntax execution (those squirming cuticles through bonds of regression)— an excessive reflection, reflexive inspection,

Prove its sanity through continued suggestion?



Deductive insurrections stirred in memory,

A rumble, causing sediments to crumble,

Wineglasses balanced atop countertops tumble.

Spilling contents upon the grained wooden, elitists' floors.



"Anesthetic, onsetting tuberculosis in breath patterns,

Gavels ringing on rigged tolling tongs in caverns,

Dark tolerances to Copernican astronomy in shadows,

And the handle grinds as boxcar wheels' flints and steels catch and spark in addled locks," I mumbled from a half-nap.



It was surgery, the smooth procedures on the moving trains,

The gains and plectrums scraped against the brains' spider veins,

To reorganize the sane, to bridge the broken definitions changed,

To prevent arguments' bone structure from fractures and sprains.



"Use gavels against the scalpels, sculpt with their judgment," a corona dream's habitant corrugated.

He pounded the gavel's end against the knife to chisel at the pituitary gland pulsing in his subject,

And her arms flailed like a horse's legs in heat-induced convulsion.
I thought it was done.



The Canson Merue train screamed in the night under earth to Yellowknife to meet Canadian soil as the Heavy Breather pounded his gavel.
Toni Cezeal Jul 2013
Flat lined on the hospital table
Spiritual ER hardly stable
So blind, unconscious,
like some show on cable
I saw myself laying there
Dying and disabled

I heard the machines
The beeping was declining
Nurses rushing
"We’re losing her doctor
She’s not even fighting"

See, in reality I was smiling
As the world went by me
While inside denying
Too much garbage I’d been hiding

Hurts which I thought were buried
Oh the disappointments they varied
And so too much baggage I carried
while myself & lies were about to be married

unforgiveness was the altar
And bitterness the ring
Unbelief like a witness
Disobedience like a wedding theme

Because somehow my heart of flesh
Had turned to stone
Like I had turned my back on the truth I’d known
Too many wounds
My scars that showed
I had enough
Like the prodigal son, decided to hit the road

I couldn’t save myself even if I tried.
My vitals were dropping
as I held onto my pride
Vitals like hope,
And the desire to keep living
My knowledge of the cross
Felt like a guilt burden

Because I hated my own helplessness
What a failure I had felt
I surely failed God
Just like I had failed myself
I self loathed and pitied
Feeling far from help
In darkness, gave up on myself
And death was the result.

But In the spiritual emergency room,
Like they're about to call time of death
The Doctor rushes in and says
“I’m not done with her yet”

Defibulator named love
Shock waves of truth
Loosening the grips of death
Destroyed deceptions noose
A second shock of love then came
Courage filled my veins again
Like oxygen revitalising my brain
Like an anesthetic relieving the pain
One final shock
A breath of hope
Gasping deeply
my heart no longer choked.

So He excavated my heart
Right after an injection of faith
A painful process
But necessary to loose the chains
For darkness to be gone
And Light to be my robe
I was slowly recovering
As my life was being made whole.

So alive in His grace
A mercy filled report chart
I was given a new heart
Myself and my Saviour were no longer apart
Yet still came an even harder part
Rehabilation had to start.

King of all Surgeons
My counselor, so kind He said:
“You're healed, and delivered
But transformation is in
The renewing of your mind”

He said: I paid the cost for your life to be saved
Your life insurance through my own expense has been paid
No condemnation because you've newly been made
Because I heard every cry of help that you prayed

Let me explain:

I was rescued from deception
Set free through redemption
So now everyday He captures my attention
Asking me one simple faith question:

WILL YOU TRUST ME?

And every day I vow: Jesus, I do.

— The End —